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Friday, July 25, 2008

Director Zack Snyder and the entire Watchmen gang had a lot to live up to at Comic Con after that extensive teaser trailer took the world by storm in front of all those Dark Knight screenings.

As it turns out, they weren’t quite able to live up to it, but that’s not at all a commentary on the quality of the film.

The footage itself was fantastic, helping to further remove any inklings of doubt that the filmmakers wouldn’t be able to retain the greatness of the graphic novel. The downside was that there wasn’t nearly enough of it. I personally was hoping for at least a couple of full scenes with dialogue, but alas, that was not the case.

In what Snyder referred to as a non-PG extension of the trailer, the montage of clips featured the following quick segments: a close-up of Rorschach’s constantly changing mask, blood dripping on Comedian’s smiley pin, more footage of Dr. Manhattan blowing up people in Vietnam, Rorschach examining Comedian’s guns and costume, Nite Owl sitting down depressed beside his costume, a shot of the Minutemen meeting with the original Silk Spectre and Comedian, a more full look at the origin of Dr. Manhattan (showing his insides disintegrating), a close-up of an older looking Ozymandias, an intimate kiss between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre while a massive bomb explodes in the background, the Nite Owl ship crashing into an iced-over mountain, Manhattan’s gigantic hand reaching into a building and grabbing someone, Comedian’s face getting cut by a knife, Dr. Manhattan bursting people with guns into nothingness, Silk Spectre’s chest nearly being exposed (schwing!), Rorschach slamming a guy into a wall, a knife being launched past Silk Spectre, and finally, a much lengthier shot of Comedian being thrown through the window.

All of these things were a sight to behold, naturally, but I’m still looking forward to seeing something more than just excellent visuals/cinematography.